Into The Web
by Shaindy
Summary: Sherlock needs help if the unthinkable actually comes to pass. Reichenbach fic, so here be spoilers. Consider yourself warned!


**Title**: Into the Web

**Words**: 1000ish  
><strong>Rating<strong>: PG  
><strong>Characters<strong>: Mycroft, Sherlock  
><strong>Warnings<strong>: SPOILERS FOR S2x03. And oh the angst!  
><strong>Summary: <strong>Mycroft's POV for the end of Reichenbach.

**A/N: **Betaed by the lovely impishtubist who has been just wonderful to speak with and to work with. Many thanks!

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><p>Across the street from St Bartholomew's, Mycroft Holmes stood in the window of an empty office and watched the scene playing out on the rooftop. Tinny voices came from his Blackberry, Sherlock having left his phone on so that he could overhear what was being said. He was hoping, praying to a god he had never believed in that what Sherlock thought would happen would not come to pass.<p>

When the gunshot came across the line, and a cab pulled up down below, Mycroft Holmes closed his eyes for a moment and cursed that god he didn't believe in. And then he picked up a different phone and sent the text that would destroy two very good men.

And then he recalled words he had spoken to Sherlock.

_All lives end. All hearts are broken._

* * *

><p>His brother had shown up at his office unannounced, striding in with the trace of cigarette smoke wafting around him. That alone had been enough to communicate Sherlock's distress. The doctor had in no uncertain terms told his flatmate that if he ever took up with any sort of drug again – nicotine included – he would be looking for a new one. The fact that he had taken up smoking again was very bad news indeed. Perhaps he shouldn't have offered him that one back during the Adler mess.<p>

But instead of remarking on it, as he usually would have done, he had simply said, "And to what do I owe this pleasure, brother?"

Sherlock had stridden past him to stand at the window, his hands clasped behind his back. "I need to die."

Behind him, Mycroft had only lifted an eyebrow. "That is one of the more…interesting things I've heard come out of your mouth."

And then Sherlock had proceeded to lay it all out for him, the web Moriarty was weaving, how he was going to make it look like Sherlock had fabricated everything, including Moriarty's own existence. How he was going to take away one of the things most important to him: his work.

Underlying the monotone recitation, though, Mycroft could hear what his brother wasn't saying. He had had a lifetime to learn what Sherlock wouldn't – or couldn't – say.

The work was important, it always had been, and for a while it had even been the most important thing.

Mycroft had told him that caring wasn't an advantage. And he had been proved right.

Because underlying everything Sherlock had said, Mycroft could hear the worry, the fear. The fear that people he now cared about would be taken from him, all for the simple reason that they were friends.

Or, Mycroft mused, maybe more?

There would be time later to consider how this might have played out had a certain ex-army doctor not fallen into his brother's life. But now was not that time.

And so he'd simply asked what Sherlock needed from him, but when he understood what his brother was planning, he – for once in his life – couldn't help himself.

"This is going to kill John, Sherlock, surely you grasp that?"

Sherlock stayed staring out the window. "I kill John either way. I get to choose. Either Moriarty puts a bullet in his head or I kill him myself." He shook his head but didn't turn. "Perhaps this way, someday I'll have a chance to fix it."

Mycroft had to make sure. "This will destroy him."

It was only then that Sherlock finally turned and Mycroft almost wished he hadn't. His eyes were swirling with more emotion than he'd ever seen and it was only then that he understood what this would cost his baby brother.

"I know exactly what this is going to do to John," Sherlock's voice was harsh in the stillness of the room, the window behind him gone dark with twilight. "And I know what it's going to do to me."

He took a deep breath then and faced Mycroft squarely. "I have never asked you for anything before, but now as my brother, I am asking you to take care of John for me."

Mycroft knew what it cost Sherlock to ask him for anything, and before tonight he would never have expected him to request anything. But time was short and he had come to learn more about his brother in the past twenty minutes than he had in the past twenty years. There was nothing he could – or would – now deny him.

"Of course, Sherlock. My word on it."

Sherlock had nodded, pulled his scarf tighter about his neck and stridden out the door. Right into the middle of the web.

* * *

><p>And now Mycroft stood in an empty office listening to one half of a conversation that he truly had no business listening in on, waiting for his cue. He heard his brother's voice break as he tried to convince John that everything Moriarty had said about him was true, that he was a liar, a charlatan, a con artist. And though he couldn't hear him, he knew that John wasn't buying it, would never think that Sherlock had ever lied to him.<p>

But he would buy Sherlock's death.

Mycroft heard the click that ended the call and saw the minute movement when Sherlock tossed the phone aside. He watched his brother square up to the pavement below.

He pushed a button and a cyclist started to pedal harder.

A crowd materialised out of nowhere. People who would surround John. Get between him and the body. Take care of him. As much as that was possible.

Behind the doors of St Bart's, a team of his own devising prepared to rush out with a gurney.

A jump. Some screams. A collision between a bike and a man. A truck pulling away.

Everything happened as planned.

And two men were destroyed.


End file.
